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Friday, April 27, 2012

The Giants ended their series winning streak with a 1-2 series against the Reds but it could have been much worse had it not been for Angel Pagan who hit a breaking ball out in the top of the ninth to turn a 2 run deficit into a Giants lead. The road trip overall was above .500 and the Giants return home for a nine game home stand after playing 13 road games of their first 19.

Up first is the struggling Padres who my projection model says that the Giants should be pretty heavily favored to beat.

Again the data going into the projection model is based on ZiPS projections and also the current seasons statistics but it is still heavily weighted toward the projections. At this point, I think that May will be when the current stats might get more and more weight but we will see when the time comes.

*Hacker hasn't been officially announced but he is the presumed starter

Odds:

Giants

Padres

Total Runs

Game 1

49%

51%

6.7

Game 2

70%

30%

6.0

Game 3

69%

31%

6.5

Sweep

24%

5%

2 out 3

45%

26%

1 out 3

26%

45%

0 out 3

5%

24%

Win Series

69%

31%

Lose Series

31%

69%

The big thing that is driving the Giants chances of winning is that their offense so far this season is projected to be nearly a full run higher per game. The Giants also have a pretty big advantage in the pitching department in games two and three.

Predicting over under: Another series, another split. My quest to get above .500 on the year continues. Just taking a quick look at my projected runs I think I will be taking the under in all three games, so hopefully the Giants pitching can shutdown the Padres and get my season record on the plus side.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Last nights game was vintage 2011 Giants offense, they get a bunch of guys on base (10 hits, 2 walks) but fail to cash those runners in (1 for 6 with RISP and 9 left on base). The starting pitching is good but a couple mistakes cost the team a game that very well could have been a win.

Last year the Giants had a triple slash line of .219/ .301/ .329 with runners in scoring position compared to .248/ .305/ .387 when no one was on. Many figured it would be bound to get better this year but so far that doesn't seem to be the case, in fact the gap has widened. This years triple slash is .194/ .282/ .312 with runners in scoring position compared to .288/ .333/ .419 with no one on.

So what gives here?

Well to try to figure this out it is important to take a look at who is getting the opportunities to drive the runners in. Luckily for us, baseball prospectus keeps these stats so we can take a look.

NAME

2nd + 3rd

2nd + 3rd Scored

2nd + 3rd %

wOBA

Brandon Crawford

27

5

19%

0.239

Melky Cabrera

26

5

19%

0.364

Pablo Sandoval

22

8

36%

0.395

Angel Pagan

21

2

10%

0.303

Aubrey Huff

18

3

17%

0.275

Buster Posey

17

1

6%

0.451

Nate Schierholtz

16

4

25%

0.398

Emmanuel Burriss

15

4

27%

0.280

Pitchers

15

1

7%

0.058

Hector Sanchez

13

5

38%

0.329

Brandon Belt

10

1

10%

0.324

Gregor Blanco

9

2

22%

0.304

Ryan Theriot

9

0

0%

0.154

Brett Pill

5

1

20%

0.463

Joaquin Arias

1

0

0%

0.000

Right off the bat you see that three of the top five guys with the most opportunities are guys with some of the lowest wOBA on the team. That right there is a recipe for struggling in run scoring positions.

Brandon Crawford who is on the team for his glove and not his bat leads the team in opportunities with runners in scoring position. While Crawford has done a respectable job getting 19 percent of the runners in scoring position in, it really isn't great when you take into account that 70 percent of his plate appearances have come with less than 2 outs. For comparison half of Melky Cabrera's at bats have come with 2 outs so he doesn't have as many chances to make an out but still get a runner in.

The big surprise in all of this is Buster Posey, he has been the teams best hitter by wOBA but has been one of the teams worst people at driving in runners. This to me seems like quite a bit of bad luck (I don't think think clutch is much of a repeatable skill and it would go totally against the narrative of BUSTER POSEY so I don't think anyone is going to suggest that) that will likely rebound as the season goes along.

Aubrey Huff and Angel Pagan haven't hit well this season and it is not a huge surprise that it has carried over into their at bats with runners in scoring position. They have a combined 39 opportunities and have driven in just 5 of those runners.

Overall I would say that the Giants struggles have been part luck and part a result of players not hitting well being the ones with high chances (115 opportunities with players under 100 wRC+ vs 109 for players above 100) to drive in runners. The first part should hopefully even out but the second part is harder to fix without being able to play better players (#FreeBelt).
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Giants are rolling right now winning 4 series in a row while going 9 and 4 in that span.To top all off they have the 5th best offense in the National League based on wRC+ and 4th in Fielding Independent Pitching.

The offense is scoring runs and the pitching is back on track preventing them. There really isn't much more that you can ask for, except that they keep it going for the whole season.

Again the data going into the projection model is based on ZiPS projections and also the current seasons statistics but it is still heavily weighted toward the projections. At this point, I think that May will be when the current stats might get more and more weight but we will see when the time comes.

The odds are heavily in the Giants favor and with the Giants holding an edge in each days pitching match-ups and with the improved offense giving a bump to the expected runs scored. The projection system says that the odds of another series win looks good. I sure hope that is the case.

Predicting over under: I got myself a split in the last series by taking the under in all four games. It looks like today is another day where my projection is right at the cutoff for the over/under so I won't have an official guess but with the way that Cain is pitching I would lean toward the under with my unofficial pick. Hopefully I can pick up a couple of right picks to get back on the correct side of .500.

Two Giants players who have gotten widely different reactions to the start of their seasons from the Giants.

Player A: .231/ .333/ .346, 102 wRC+ in 30 plate appearances

Player B: .280/ .269/ .400, 80 wRC+ in 26 plate appearances

Which one would you rather have going forward based on this very limited sample size? While neither seems to be running away with significantly better statistics you wouldn't really know it based on what is coming out of the Giants organization.

One of these players is getting talked about as playing his way into more playing time while the other has played his way toward less playing time and is being talked about needing to spend more time in Fresno. To me this makes almost no sense at all.

If you didn't guess the players yet let me reveal things for you, Player is Brandon Belt and Player B is Hector Sanchez.

I am a fan of Hector Sanchez, don't get me wrong. I think that his presence on the team makes them better considering that the other options were Eli Whiteside or Chris Stewart. He has the potential to be a decent hitter and seems to have done an adequate job defensibly in his limited opportunities behind the plate. Right now he is doing an excellent job as Buster Posey's backup.

I find it maddening that Sanchez is being talked up right now, it must be the .280 batting average because while he hasn't looked lost at the plate he isn't exactly hitting the cover off of the ball either.

I don't think that his stats or approach say that he is forcing the issue to the point that he should be pushing Posey from behind the plate to first base just to get his bat in the lineup more often. Sure if Posey needs more rest then give him more starts but not just for the sake of getting him more playing time.

Giving more starts to Sanchez causes a ripple effect that ultimately makes the Giants weaker and that isn't a good idea. One of the things that makes Posey so special is that he is a good hitter at a premium defensive position and to top it off is a very good defender. Moving him to first base decreases his defensive contribution and forces the Giants to move one of Huff/Betl/Pill/Schierholtz to the bench.

So the question is does Sanchez's bat plus the slightly more rested Posey makeup for not having one of the other guys in the lineup? I really don't think so at this point.

Sanchez will get plenty of time behind the plate giving Posey rest to keep him fresh but the Giants shouldn't go out of their way to give him time at the expense of players that make the team better offensively and defensively.
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Friday, April 20, 2012

The Giants are pretty much back on track after getting swept to start the season, they have series wins in the last three that they have played and the pitching staff which had let them down has been the strength of the team (with the notable exception of Tim Lincecum). The bats have cooled down a bit but the team is still averaging over 4 runs a game on the season.

Now the Giants embark on their first east coast road trip with a four game series in New York and then a stop in Cincinnati for three more. Hopefully they can keep up their winning ways and come back with a winning record.

Again the data going into the projection model is based on ZiPS projections and also the current seasons statistics but it is still heavily weighted toward the projections. At this point, I think that May will be when the current stats might get more and more weight but we will see when the time comes.

Predicting over under: Last series I only was able to take the over under on two games because my Tim Lincecum vs. Roy Halladay projection was exactly what the spread was. I did post here that if I was the person making the bet that I would have taken the over and it would have been the correct choice, but for the sake of this experiment I won't count that as a correct guess (unless things get really ugly down the road and I need this to help save some face).

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

To start off the young season the Giants defense has looked rather poor. This is a pretty big departure from the last few seasons where even with considerably less athletic teams the Giants have been above average defensively (since 2009 they have averaged +11.3 defensive runs saved [DRS] and a +47.76 in UZR as a team).

So what is the matter this year and should we expect this team to turn it around?

I’m inclined to say that this team is much better than they have shown so far and as the season plays out the defense should be a net positive. For the fun of it let’s take a look position by position to compare what the team has now compared to what they have had in seasons past.

Catcher:

Buster Posey is by all accounts at least an average defensive catcher, it is hard to quantify catcher defense but what has been reported seems to point that over a full season he is probably in the range of a plus 5 runs saved defender. If you look at the stats complied at Beyond the Boxscore he ranked 12th in 2010 and 16th in 2011 in less than a full season of work.

His backup Hector Sanchez probably isn’t as good defensively as Chris Stewart was but again from the reports he seems to be at least somewhere around league average and to this point he hasn’t really logged all that many innings behind the plate.

Overall the catcher defense should be a strength for the Giants.

First Base:

According to scouting reports Brandon Belt should be an above average defensive first baseman, but so far the very early stats don’t back it up but this is really far too early for anything definitive, according to both UZR (-1.2) and DRS (+1) he is right around average. I would say that as he gets more innings at first base his numbers should improve but I feel pretty safe going with that he is average at first base.

For Aubrey Huff at first base he has been above average with the Giants, for his career he has a negative UZR and DRS but that could be partly because he only played first base part time. As with Belt I would feel pretty comfortable saying that he is at least an average defensive first baseman and might be slightly above average when playing first base as a regular.

Overall the defense at first base should be about average.

Second Base:

Emmanuel Burriss is probably not a great defender but he is again not a bad option at second base. In his 1081 innings in the big leagues he has a positive UZR (+0.7) but a negative DRS (-5). From what I have seen of him and the scouting reports of his minor league career I would say that he is probably below average but not to the point that he would be a defensive liability. With his weak bat he probably shouldn’t be starting in the Major League’s but the Giants options are pretty limited.

Ryan Theriot at second base is not a bad choice but keep him away from short stop where he would bring back bad memories of the Miguel Tejada/Orlando Cabrera era. For his career Theriot grades out positively in both UZR (+7.8) and DSR (+4), he isn’t going to win a gold glove but he will make the plays you would expect an average second baseman to make.

Freddy Sanchez is a bit of a question mark here; with his shoulder still bothering him when he throws his past numbers probably don’t tell us all that much about what we should expect if he is able to come back. For his career he has been above average according to UZR (+16.9, 4.5 UZR/150) while DSR sees him as below average (-5). Taking the shoulder into account I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling him above average defensively so he is probably below average with the best case of being average.

Overall the defense at second base isn’t great and is probably below average.

Shortstop:

Brandon Crawford’s calling card is his defense. The scouts all seem to be in agreement that he should be above average. While his fielding percentage isn’t pretty right now (.933 with 4 errors) both UZR (+1.5, +28.2 UZR 150) and DRS (+3) think that he has been a very good shortstop this season. This backs up what the scouting reports say, and I think watching him play that he has been a net plus defensively getting to balls that would have been through the infield the last few seasons with guys like Tejada, Cabrera and Edgar Renteria manning short.

Overall Crawford should be one of the best defensive shortstops the Giants have had in a long while and should be a strength of this team defensively.

Third Base:

Pablo Sandoval who is another infielder with an ugly fielding percentage right now (.886) but like Crawford he hasn’t been as bad as that would suggest. According to UZR (-.01, -3.1 UZR/150) and DSR (-1) he has hurt the team with his defense but not by as much as the fielding percentage would suggest. In addition last season Sandoval was one of the best defensive third basemen in the National League so it is possible that he could bounce back to that level. Right now I would feel comfortable saying that over the course of the season he will at least be average defensively and could be better than that. What we are seeing now is probably the absolute worse you could expect and that would only make him slightly below average.

Overall, third base should be another position where the Giants are average and if Sandoval bounces back from his early mistakes could be above average.

Outfield:

Melky Cabrera has played all over the outfield in his career but in reality he is best suited for a corner spot defensively. In centerfield he is a liability but in the corner spots he is an average defender. Both UZR and DRS have his numbers hovering around 0 for the last few seasons in both right and left so it is pretty safe to assume that he is an average corner outfielder.

Angel Pagan in his career has shown that he is a good defender in the outfield. The only outlier appears to be 2011 and the start of 2012 where he has posted well below average numbers according to UZR and DSR. It might be the start of a new trend where his defense is slipping or it might just be the issues with defensive metrics where looking at single season numbers give you some pretty wild swings in the numbers. From what I have seen I am disposed to say that he is still a good defender but for this I will error on the conservative side and say that he is an average centerfielder.

Nate Schierholtz has the reputation as being one of the best right fielders in baseball and both DSR (+8) and UZR (+15.7, 10.1 UZR/150) back that up for his career. I don’t think I would be going out on a limb by suggesting that he is an above average outfielder.

Aubrey Huff will also be logging some time in the outfield for the Giants this season and that really hurts the teams defense. For one when Huff is in the outfield it most likely pushes Shierholtz to the bench and also that he is just plain not a great defender in the outfield. For his career in the outfield (both left and right combined) both UZR (-25.2, -12.2 UZR/150) and DSR (-10) suggest that he is hold your breath when a ball is headed to him bad. The Giants think he is a better option than Belt in the outfield but it probably still leaves whoever is out there as below average.

Gregor Blanco who is the Giants 4th/5th outfielder who for his career has played a little bit of each outfield spot and done pretty well in all three. There isn’t a huge Major League track record to go off of but I would feel comfortable saying he is an above average defender. In the end Blanco’s defense probably matters the least because he will most likely see the fewest innings barring someone above getting injured.

Overall the outfield defense can be good or bad depending on the lineup that Bochy puts out there. If it is Cabrera, Pagan, Schierholtz it is probably above average. If it is Huff, Pagan, Cabrera it is probably below average. With Bochy’s ability to put in defensive substitutions in late game situations I would say that on net the defense is probably around league average but that might be generous.

All together now:

Taking the team as a whole we have above two average spots, 3 average spots and one below average spot. The outfield defense is the biggest uncertainty that can range from above average to below average.

All in all with the Giants high strike out pitching staff, the defense isn’t called on to make a huge bulk of the outs and even with a below average defense this team should still do a good job at preventing runs. If the defense gets better like I expect they should be just fine going forward.
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Monday, April 16, 2012

I was away from my computer for a few hours and the Giants go and make a big splash signing Madison Bumgarner to a big extension that buys out his arbitration years plus one free agent year with options covering two more.

The guaranteed money looks like it is $35 million (he is likely going to just miss being a super two which would kick it up to $40 million) but I haven't seen anything on what the salary is for the option years is. I will hold off on doing an in depth analysis for when the full details are available.

Regardless this is a pretty big change for the Giants who had been comfortable going year to year with their cost controlled players. If Bumgarner continues to improve like he has shown this could be a huge bargain for the team down the road. In addition it sets up Bumgarner for a while which must be comforting seeing as teammate Brian Wilson's career took a hit with his elbow needing season ending surgery.

All in all this looks good for both sides and with Bumgarner's age he should still have the opportunity to go out and get another big deal when this expires at his age 29 season.

The San Francisco Giants have signed left-handed pitcher Madison Bumgarner to a five-year extension through 2017 with a club/vesting option for 2018 and a club option for 2019, club Senior Vice President and General Manager Brian Sabean announced today. The five-year extension agreement covers Bumgarner through his arbitration years and his first year of free agency.

“Preserving our core pitching for the long term remains a top priority for the Giants and today’s extension certainly helps further that goal,” said Sabean. “Madison has already proven that he is one of the best left handed pitchers in the game today and we are confident that he will continue to succeed for many years to come.”

Bumgarner, who is currently the second youngest player on the Giants’ 25-man roster at just 22 years old, has been a vital piece to the Giants’ starting rotation since being called up to the big leagues in 2009. Since then, the 6-foot-5, 235-pound left-hander has posted a 21-20 record with a 3.12 ERA (117er, 337.0ip) in 57 games (54 starts) over parts of four seasons in a Giants uniform.

Last season the North Carolina native finished 11th in the National League with a 3.21 ERA and he reached the 200.0 inning plateau for the first time in his professional career. His 8.40 strikeouts per 9.0 innings in 2011 was the third-best ratio among all NL left-handed pitchers behind Los Angeles’ Clayton Kershaw (9.57) and Philadelphia’s Cliff Lee (9.21).

At 20 years and 38 days old, Bumgarner became the franchise’s youngest pitcher to start a game in his Major league debut since the Giants moved West in 1958. A year later he became the fifth-youngest pitcher to start a World Series game and fourth-youngest to win a World Series contest at just 21 years and 91 days old.

Drafted by the Giants in the first round (10th overall) of the 2007 First-Year Player draft, Bumgarner has gone 1-1 with a 3.97 ERA in his first two starts this season. He’s scheduled to pitch tomorrow night against Phillies’ right-handed pitcher Joe Blanton.

After being swept in Arizona the Giants have bounced back to win back to back series against the Rockies and Pirates. The good news is that the starting pitching which was not good in Arizona has looked much better with Giants starters posting quality starts in 5 of the last 6 games. At the same time the offense has continued to score runs in bunches scoring 4 runs in 8 of the Giants first 9 games.

The Phillies are a tough match-up but with a lineup that is missing Chase Utley and Ryan Howard they have gotten off to a slow start offensively. So maybe the Giants are going to catch a bit of a break against a very tough team.

Again the data going into the projection model is based on ZiPS projections and also the current seasons statistics but it is still heavily weighted toward the projections. At this point I think May will be when the current stats might get more and more weight but we will see when the time comes.

The Giants are slight favorites but really only on the strength of being the home team. On a neutral site the Phillies would actually be favored so this should be a very even match-up on paper. In addition this is the lowest total runs projections I have seen in a while, I guess that's what happens when you get a couple of great rotations together.

Predicting over under: My results continue to mirror the teams as I went 2-1 against the over/under to improve my record to 4-5 on the season. Tonight's over/under is set at 6 which is exactly what I have projected so I guess I am sitting out tonight's game, my heart is saying take the over with Lincecum's struggles but it is hard to bet on Lincecum not coming out of his funk eventually.

Friday, April 13, 2012

On the bright side things are starting to look a little better for the Giants after taking 2 out of 3 from the Rockies. Madison Bumgarner pitched an excellent game, Barry Zito threw a shutout and the Giants offense continued to score runs in bunches. There were some not so good things but now isn't the time to rehash those because opening day is for celebrating.

The Giants draw the struggling Pirates who come in with the lowest runs scored of any team in baseball and like the Giants they have only 2 wins in the young season.

My Projection model really likes the Giants chances this series so hopefully the Giants can send people home happy with another series win.

One quick note, I have added in a park factor adjustment to the model to hopefully help make my total runs projection a little bit better.

Predicting over under: My results continue to match the teams, going 2 and 1 in the Colorado series. I took the under all three times and expect for the crazy Wednesday night game it worked out. The over/under for today's game is 6.5 so it looks like I will be taking the over for the first time of the season, so I hope the Giants continue to score at a high rate.